Tag: new paths

It was late morning when I countered the buyers’ offer and the day went by with no response. Ugh…..Maybe I should have accepted. Maybe they changed their minds. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And then it hit me – just STOP doing this to yourself. They want the house. You’ve decided to sell it. Eventually, you will come to an agreement, it just doesn’t have to be THIS MINUTE. So I went to Karen’s bait shop in New London, waited on customers, counted sandworms, sold clam necks, and sat out on the back deck a lot soaking in the sun. And we laughed and talked and passed the time. By late evening, my anxiety was starting up again and I once again managed to talk myself down. What will happen, will happen, I decided. If the buyers walk away, perhaps they weren’t the right buyers. With that in mind, I passed the hours enjoying my friends and not worrying about what time it was. And to be honest, I even forgot about the whole thing! Then at 8 pm, the phone rang much to my surprise and there it was – a new offer from my buyers. This one hit the the magic number I had held in my head and I accepted!

Now comes the reality. I have to move. I have to leave my beautiful little home. I have to leave my sister (by another mother), Karen. And Jo. And Barb. But I HAVE to do this. For my own happiness. For my own health. And hopefully, they will visit me often and we will have phone contact often. Because I cannot imagine my life without them in it. I love them. They are part of me.

Obviously, I don’t know what religious beliefs, if any, my readers may have. But I feel that if we listen hard enough, God, or the Universe or whatever you feel helps you along in life, speaks to us. And so it was that night after I went to bed and started reading my latest in a series of historical novels set in Virginia immediately after the conclusion of the Civil War. The heroines of the book were each trying to blaze new paths using their passions and they were encouraging one another to brave new frontiers. One remarked to the other:

“My grandmother asked me one time to think about who the happier woman would be – one who braved the storm of life and truly lived, or one who stayed securely on shore and merely existed. Her words gave me the courage to leave home, but there have been other times I’ve forgotten my answer and decided to stay on shore. I’ve always regretted not taking risks. I hope I’ve learned to never do that again, but life can be scary. It’s easy to want to hunker down where you believe it’s safe”.

Wow! What the heck? Was someone talking to ME??? I could not believe that I was reading those words on the very night that I chose to say yes to sell my house! Yes to leaving my home state. It was like a gentle push telling me to go ahead and embrace this change. And then, if that wasn’t enough, came another line that spoke so clearly to me. Me personally. Because it described EXACTLY what I had been doing. It was EXACTLY what had been holding me back. Because I don’t take anything for granted. Not the gift of another day. Not my dear friends. Not the old 1998 car I still have. Nothing. And after having come close to leaving this world twice, I am SOOOOO grateful for everyone and everything I have in my life. But there it was in black and white – the next line of the book that resonated with me:

“Change is hard for people because they overestimate the value of what they have, and they underestimate the value of what they may gain by changing”.

I had to really think about that sentence. Overestimate the value of what I have? No way! That sounded down right ungrateful! Until you look at the entire sentence that is. Basically, it was saying to me that I was committing a transgression other than the offense of being ungrateful. It was the crime of not fully embracing the life that had been so mercifully given back to me. Twice. First after I broke my neck in 2010 and again after I survived peritonitis last year. OK God, I am listening to what You have to say to me. I know there was no coincidence that I saw these lines on THE SAME NIGHT I shakily agreed to sell my beloved home and move 1,322 miles away. I’m going to stop underestimating the value of what is out there ready for me to gain because that in itself would be ungrateful. So here I go! Ready, set, DIVE IN!